The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson.

In the summer of 1854, Cholera seized London with unprecedented intensity. In a "triumph of dynamic, multidisciplinary thinking", Steven Johnson examines the epidemic from the microbial level to the human level to the urban level and examines the intertwined histories of the spread of disease, the rise of cities, and the nature of scientific inquiry.